June 29, 2009 - Clarifying the Universe

Clarifying the Universe In the same way that heat rising off a far-off stretch of highway causes distant scenery to appear blurry, atmospheric turbulence degrades a ground-based telescope’s view of astronomical objects. Telescopes with adaptive optics, like Gemini North (see week of 22 June), compensate for these distortions by accurately measuring the atmosphere’s activity in real time. Computers then send instructions to deformable mirrors that minutely change their shape up to one thousand times per second, resulting in images that rival or exceed the sharpness of pictures taken from space. This high-resolution view of Jupiter obtained with adaptive optics shows two giant red spots (which appear white in the near-infrared) brushing past one another in the planet’s southern hemisphere.

Image credit: Gemini Observatory/Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy